Classic Poem

Yet ought I to despair?
When one so pure and sweet has passed away,
Does her hand point to darkness or to day?
To gloom or sunlit air?

Her life was tenderest love, from end to end,
Can such supreme love die—
Be mixed with stars or sky?
Is not the vanished still the present Friend?

Mother, where art thou now?
Not surely in the tomb!
Not there the loving eyes, the stainless brow,
Not there—but far beyond death's mists and gloom.

Thou wouldst not have me weep;
This much—amid the sorrow—this I know:
Thou sentest me the sleep
That gave me strength to bear the unmeasured woe.

If I give way to pain
My pain, O mother-heart, may trouble thee,
What thou wouldst have me gain
Is strength—and selfless love, and purity.

It may be that my eyes
That linger overlong upon thy tomb
Should now reseek the skies
Where deathless starlight battles still with gloom.

It may be that thou say'st
With voice more sweet than morning's sweetest song,
“I tarry for thee, son—be brave, be strong;
So shall the hours make haste.”